A Special Addition “What the frak…?” moment (WTFM) is brought to you by………..

The Murphy’s Law of Vacations: if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Horribly wrong.

Part 3 of the Special Three Part Vacation Addition of “What the frak?”

Part 3: The Plague

Our final day of vacation dawned – along with the final few hours of normalcy.

I was awake by 5:30 AM as I began the massive process of packing.

I know, it should be simple, right? I simply had to place everything we brought into bags.

I also had to leave out all ski gear for the day, make sure anything we required for the next 14 hours was accessible and locatable, decide what food I had to make room for that we hadn’t eaten, and ensure there was actually room for the ski gear when we were finished with it (winter gear for four people takes up almost an entire suitcase).

My plans to figure all of this out the night prior were obliterated when my eyelids refused to remain open past 9:30 PM.

The morning moved along, everything right on schedule as CG and the kids slept in until after 7.

The First Sign of The Plague

Lil Diva moaned and groaned awake, and as I opened up the bathroom door to get her (she slept in a pack ‘n play in the second bathroom to prevent the Sibling Tag Team Wake Up Competition that happened over Christmas) I noticed the stench.

Normally, Wake Up Stench is not unusual – I swear she sets her diaper to “fill” as a form of an alarm clock.

Slipping on what is making the stench, however, is.

As my shoe slipped on the floor, I paused to turn on the light.

And found Lil Diva, the floor, her snuggly toy, and the condo’s pack ‘n play COVERED in partially digested hunks of blueberries – her final snack the night before.

It was a scene right out of The Exorcist.

Only blueberries stain a lot worse than whatever that green goo was.

In fact, I cannot think of another substance that packs the power of blueberries in regards to “dye” strength – except for maybe beets.

Thank god she doesn’t eat beets.

As I sent her to CG for an emergency bath, I stripped the crib and mopped up the mess on the floor – thankful she’d been in the bathroom over tile and not on the carpet.

I continued packing and prepping the kids for our final day. CG and I wrote off the Exorcist Incident due to Lil Diva coughing in the dry mountain air – she had woken up multiple times during the night coughing, but had always soothed herself back to sleep after a few minutes.

I zipped around the condo, a Mommy Whirlwind of packing frenzy.

I stopped long enough to transport Lil Diva to daycare and The Tackler to ski school – while CG scrubbed the bedding as best as he could before our 9:30 AM snowboarding lesson.

Check out was 10 AM, forcing us to be out of there prior to our lesson.

Through a miracle, we were checked out on time – our luggage dumped downstairs and locked in the utility room until our train arrival later that afternoon – along with bags of food and Lil Diva’s soaking wet bedding. My goal: I’d use the coin washer when we came back for lunch so the stains wouldn’t have time to set.

As I panted from all of the mad dashing around and arrived at the lesson location (CG was grabbing our snowboards while I told them what level we were at), I noticed my waterproof gloves at some point had come un-clipped from my snow pants and were now MIA.

I quickly retraced my final steps at top speed and discovered my ear band – that I hadn’t yet learned I was missing – but no gloves.

They would never be seen again.

Only my glove liners remained – bought the previous Tuesday thanks to very cold weather. Paired with CG’s glove liners, my hands were warm enough – just not waterproof – which would not have been a problem if I’d been skiing.

But we were going snowboarding. And I fall doing that.

A lot.

Luckily the day was warm and sunny – the warmest day of the week.

CG and I joined our lesson and went up on the mountain.

And fell.

A lot.

About 45 minutes into our lesson, I got The Call.

Only I failed to answer it in time, because smartphone touchscreens don’t work through two layers of gloves.

Thirty seconds later, CG’s phone received The Call.

Lil Diva was running a 101+ fever and we needed to pick her up.

CG and I had a quick pow-wow and he graciously volunteered to be the one to retrieve her so I could stay with the lesson.

So I stayed. And fell.

A lot.

Our group members dropped like flies, and by the end, I was having a private lesson.

But I still fell.

A lot.

It was fun and exhausting – I had only snowboarded once almost ten years prior and my muscles greatly protested.

I erred and caught my edge a few times and had the wind smacked out of me too.

By the end of my lesson, it was noon, forty degrees and hot, and I was starving.

CG and I met up to figure out what to do.

We had no daycare options for Lil Diva.

We no longer had a room.

No crib.

No place quiet to hang out with her until our train ride at 4 PM.

Plus, we’d paid for a full day of rentals and lift tickets – never a cheap thing unless you’re local.

So we traded as I took Lil Diva and let her run around one of the dining areas while CG went to the rental place to see if he could get a refund on his package – only having used it for about an hour.

We were lucky, they understood our predicament and refunded his rentals, lift ticket, and lesson fee.

Anyone who has been skiing, knows what that can cost.

By the time we ate lunch, my inner thighs were sore – most likely from the several edge catching wipe outs.

So we traded again – CG took my boots and board (luckily our feet are almost the same size) and went up the mountain while I attempted to find a quiet spot so Lil Diva could nap.

Attempted being the operative word. No place existed in our small area – not with elevators and the loud clomping of ski boots.

A twenty minute power nap was all she managed.

I was left trying to corral the cranky, feverish Lil Diva while using the lobby’s coin laundry on the mess left over from the morning.

I lived.

But it was not how I’d anticipated spending our final day in the mountains.

Finally it was train time, and a shuttle dropped us at the outdoor train station – luckily it was still warm and sunny out.

I shudder to think what would’ve happened if our trip was this week, and not last week.

CG and I weren’t in the best moods on the train ride with Lil Diva in full blown “I’m sick, exhausted, and don’t understand why you won’t let me get a concussion from walking down the train aisles – I need freedom!” mode. Her crankiness was as contagious as she was.

Which we found out early Sunday morning. When CG spent a good portion of the morning worshiping The Porcelain Goddess.

That weekend was spent at my dear friend Heather’s home – with her two children.

We tried to keep Lil Diva away from them, and the nice weather helped – the Tackler and her son spent a lot of time running around outside.

Lil Diva grabbed a quick 45 minute nap on the plane ride home - followed by grouchiness at the too short duration.

However, as of Wednesday, both she, her husband, and her daughter had caught The Virus – her son the only escapee as the one who spent the least amount of time around Lil Diva.

The Tackler finally succumbed to The Virus around 3 AM Wednesday – as I shared in my Groundhog Day post – up for award of Worst Morning Ever.

Thankfully it did not turn into a Groundhog Day never ending loop.

Still, why the frak did the last three days of our first real vacation have to be full of illness?

Why did it have to force Heather and her family to fall as casualties with us?

The only positives I can think of are:

A) our vacation was last week, not this week with -30 degree wind chills,

B) the illness hit at the end and not the beginning of our trip so we did get to ski – although I’m not sure Heather would agree, and

C) so far my resistance to stomach viruses remains (knock on wood) – I haven’t been affected by one since the age of five. I’m convinced this is an Evolutionary Mother Adaption – so someone healthy exists to take care of everyone else.

So was it a great vacation?

Yes.

But I could’ve lived without Murphy tagging along and providing so many extra “what the frak? moments.

Do you have any vacation horror stories?

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About Kelly K @ Dances with Chaos

Kelly K has learned the five steps to surviving of motherhood:
1) Don't get mad. Grab your camera. 2) Take a photograph. 3) Blog about it. 4) Laugh. 5) Repeat.
She shares these tales at Dances with Chaos in order to preserve what tiny amount of sanity remains.
You can also find her on her sister blog, Writing with Chaos (www.writingwithchaos.com) sharing memoir and engaging in her true love: fiction writing.
It's cheaper than therapy.

wow. your vacation makes me tired! still, it is awesome you got away and had a few good days. and, it gave you something to write about, all 3 parts of which I thoroughly enjoyed reading, so thanks for the entertainment 😉

That’s intense. Too bad you had to deal with all that stuff. My sister and husband had a similar experience in Florida last year with 3 kids. They were miserable and vowed to never vaca again. Now they realize they got all the worst stuff at once and the next one will be better!

Sadly if there is one thing I have learned about parenting, vacationing, and traveling with children: past performance/illness has zero bearing on what the future will be like. Today’s illness does not mean next year another will not occur.

That being said, some fun was still had and I hope to do another vacation in the future – I will just have to make sure I pray to all of the Gods of every religion this time. And encase my children in a plastic bubble for the duration of the trip.

Oh – I now firmly believe that ski resort daycares are giant petri dishes of experimental funk. My daughter got it, I got it, my mom got it, my neighbor got it, her mom got it, her daughter got it. All because I paid $2937429374 per day for someone to make sure my kid was corralled for a few hours while I went skiing. Selfish me!
We’re not taking her skiing again until she can go to ski school.